The Last Assassin (8 page)

She eased the baby into my arms and stayed close, watching. The boy let out a long sigh in his sleep and turned toward me as though searching for warmth. I looked at him and suddenly the tears were flowing down my cheeks and I couldn't stop them. I couldn't even wipe them away. All I could do was blink to clear my eyes and look at that little face until I had to blink again.

I don't know how long we stood like that. At some point Midori put her hand on my shoulder and I became aware of an ache in my jaw from the way I had been clenching it. I handed Koichiro back to her and wiped my face while she got him settled again in his crib.

We went back into the living room. Midori closed the door behind us.

I looked up at the ceiling and deliberately breathed in and out, in and out, trying to steady myself. A hundred jumbled thoughts were pinballing through my brain.

“What if…” I started to say, then thought better of it.

“What?”

I looked at her. “What if I could get out of the life? Really out of it.”

She sighed. “I don't believe you can.”

“But what if I could?”

A long moment went by. Finally she said, “I guess we'd have to see then.”

I wanted her to say more, but I was afraid to ask.

There was a pad of paper and a pen on the coffee table next to the couch. I walked over and wrote down my cell phone number.

“Here,” I said. “If you ever need help, with anything, call me.”

She took the piece of paper. “Is this a phone number?”

“Yeah. Cell phone. If I don't answer, leave a voice mail. I check it all the time.”

“Wow, a number where I can actually call you,” she said, with a small smile. “I guess that's progress.”

I smiled back. “Told you I could change.”

“We'll see.”

I reached out and touched her shoulder.

“Thank you,” I said.

She nodded.

I was still touching her shoulder. I realized she hadn't objected.

I moved closer, and she didn't step back.

I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed. Then, after a moment, she was squeezing me, too.

We stood like that for a while, just holding each other. I kissed her forehead, then her cheek. Then her forehead again. She smelled good; she smelled the way I remembered.

She whispered, “Jun, don't.”

She was the only one who called me by the diminutive of Junichi, my Japanese given name. It felt good to hear her say it.

I kissed her eyelids. Again she said, “Don't.”

I didn't care. I didn't care about anything. I kissed her softly on the lips. She didn't kiss me back, but she didn't move away, either. I could hear her breathing.

She put a hand on my chest. I thought she was going to push me away, but she left it there. It felt warm through my shirt.

I kissed her again. This time she made a sound that was somewhere between a whimper and a reproach and suddenly seized the sides of my head with both hands. Then she was kissing me back, kissing me hard.

I put my hands on her and she pressed against me. But when I started to lift her shirt out of her jeans, she twisted away.

“Jun, stop. We have to stop.”

I nodded, breathing hard. “Yeah,” I said.

“You need to go. Please.”

I blinked and shook my head. “Will you call me?” I asked.

“Will you get out of the life?”

“I'll try.”

“Then you call me. When you're out.”

I couldn't ask for more than that. I walked to the door and pulled on my shoes, the fleeces, and the jacket. I nodded to her. She nodded back. Neither of us spoke.

I got the baseball cap on in the elevator and moved through the lobby with my head down. I stepped outside and checked the hot spots. All clear. I headed east. The chill air hit my face but I was barely aware of it. I felt exhausted, empty. I should have known I wasn't in the right condition to protect myself. I should have known what was going to happen next.

MIDORI STOOD AND WATCHED
the door for a long time after Rain left. He was gone as suddenly as he had appeared, but his presence lingered everywhere and changed everything, from the feel of her lips and tongue to the contours of the apartment to her thoughts of the future.

How many times had she told herself she hated him, for what he did to her father, for the lies he told her afterward, for everything he was? And yet, not two minutes earlier, she had been kissing him with such abandon that she was still light-headed from it. How the hell had she summoned the will to send him away? She wished for a moment she hadn't, and the thought made her feel ashamed.

She sat on the couch, closed her eyes, and put her head in her hands. That thing he had said about what she was going to tell Koichiro about his father had stung. She had considered the issue many times, of course, but could never come up with a comfortable answer. It was easier to just defer things, to tell herself she would figure it out as Koichiro got older, but now she wasn't sure.

When she had first learned she was pregnant, she felt her body had betrayed her, as though she was a woman carrying the child of a soldier who had raped her in war. She had made an appointment at a clinic, determined to end the pregnancy immediately and never think of it again. But that same night, as she lay in bed staring at the ceiling, one hand half-consciously rubbing her belly, she thought maybe it was better not to act so hastily. It was still early. Why not sleep on it for a few nights, make up her mind more deliberately? The option to abort would still be there. It wasn't going away.

But those few nights turned into many. She thought ceaselessly about her circumstances. She loved living in New York, loved doing gigs here, loved the freedom of life away from Japan. And meeting men was easy enough. She saw the way they gazed at her while she played, many of them repeat customers, and she was aware of the nervous timbre of their voices when they approached her to thank her after a performance. She went out with a few, but none of them had interested her long-term.

At some point, she had come to understand that, in her late thirties, the chance for marriage and a family had probably passed. But that was okay. She concentrated on all the good things in her life and told herself that a husband and the rest would have interfered. But on those long sleepless nights after she learned she was pregnant, she realized she had been making a virtue of a necessity. Because her circumstances had seemed unchangeable, she had been motivated to accept them. But everything was different now.

She believed in fate, and this felt like fate to her. Yes, she knew she could choose to abort as she could choose to have the baby, so how could either alternative be fate, really? But she didn't care about the logic so much. It was her intuition she listened to. And her intuition told her to have the baby.

But she felt no desire to try to contact Rain. It wasn't only because of her father. It was because of what Rain was. Then, when the baby was born, her conviction that she should never tell him only deepened. From the moment the doctor brought that tiny child from her agonized, exhausted body and she heard him cry and held him hot and slick in her arms, she knew she had to keep him from the danger Rain represented.

And now that she had Koichiro, she couldn't imagine anything other than the two of them together. Her previous life, good as it was, seemed almost a dream, and the thought that she had nearly gone through with an abortion was enough to make her feel sick, as though she had once in a moment of weakness contemplated murdering her child. She would never have thought it possible, but she defined herself as this little boy's mother more than she had defined herself as anything else before.

She stood up, went into the bedroom, and watched Koichiro sleep. She realized that all her internal protests about her feelings for Rain had been window dressing, a flimsy façade that had crumbled at his first appearance. She felt a pang of guilt, as though her own feelings for this man were a betrayal of her father. But would her father have wanted her to die leaving him no grandchildren? And would he have wanted his grandchild to grow up not knowing his father? Surely Koichiro's paternity was of small significance in comparison with these larger issues. And it was true that Rain had tried to finish her father's efforts to expose corruption in the government, that this was his way of trying to rectify, even to atone for what he had done. She felt that in some inexplicable way, her father would have appreciated what Rain had done afterward. That he might even have…forgiven him.

She leaned over and kissed Koichiro's forehead, then stood looking at him again. Seeing Rain holding their baby, and for the first time seeing him cry, had softened something inside her, she knew. She didn't know what she wanted, or what she would do if Rain came back. She no longer felt sure of anything. Except for this sweet child. She would do anything to protect him. Anything in the world.

I
TURNED LEFT
on the sidewalk at Waverly, devoid of plan or purpose. I just wanted to walk, to keep moving.

I couldn't get the image of Koichiro's face out of my mind. He was so small, so innocent in his sleep. So helpless.

Midori had been right to keep me away. The thought that my presence could put my little son in danger horrified me.

But you can change,
I told myself.
Maybe you already have. There's a way out. All you have to do is find it. For Koichiro.

I walked. Of course I could do it. Wasn't this what I'd been looking for? What Tatsu had always told me I needed? What was it he'd said in Tokyo the last time I saw him:
You know as well as I do that you need a connection, you need something to pull you off the nihilistic path you've been treading.

Well, maybe this was it, just as he'd contended.

I could still smell Midori, still taste her on my lips. She'd been upset when she first saw me, true, but she'd left the door open just now, no doubt about that. All I had to do was figure out the right way to walk through it. I thought of Koichiro again. God, this could really work out. It could.

When I was fifteen feet from the end of the block, I heard footsteps from around the corner. I looked up and
pow,
before I could do anything about it, there was Eddie Wong, turning onto Waverly from Tenth right in front of me. And I'd thrown away the fucking wig.
Stupid. Stupid.

If I'd been myself at that moment, I could have reacted more effectively. I would have turned my face away, retracted my antenna, passed without his even knowing.

But I wasn't myself. My body was back on the street, but my mind was still in Midori's apartment, digging out from under an avalanche of hope. Instead of looking away, for a second I stared straight at him, like a man unable to avert his eyes from the scene of a grisly accident.

He looked at me, too. And the recognition hardening on his face was undeniable. I realized he was seeing the same expression on mine.

No,
I thought,
no, fuck no…

Wong slowed down, his mind no doubt struggling to sort it all through. Whatever planning he had done had probably gone on the assumption that he would spot me surreptitiously, not that we would suddenly spot each other. His body was responding to his unconscious wish for more time, for a few more precious seconds to decide what to do.

I decided faster. It wasn't even a decision as such, more a reflex honed by a lifetime of killing. A reflex that had been delayed by my unaccustomed emotional state, but that now, as I recognized the threat to Midori and my child, snapped ferociously into place.

I went straight for him. As I closed the distance, his right hand moved to his coat pocket, probably where he kept the Balisong he was reputed to carry.

There's value to favoring a certain weapon and to practicing with it regularly. But there's a potential downside, too: you can come to rely on it, and to try to reach for it, when you would have been better off doing something else. This is why cops are often killed by knifers with their guns half out of their holsters. The cop sees the knife coming, but is so dependent on his pistol that he fails to recognize he's not going to have time to deploy it before he's already being stabbed. If someone has the jump on you, the better tactic is to create distance or otherwise slow down the attack and then access your favored weapon so that you'll actually have a chance to use it. Otherwise, the gun in your holster might as well have been in a safe back home.

But apparently Wong didn't know all that. He reached for the Balisong, and while he was reaching for it, I reached him.

I stepped in and blasted him across the front and right side of the neck with my right forearm, in the same instant catching his right bicep with my left hand. The neck shot might shock his brachial plexus and interrupt the functioning of his right arm. The bicep grab was backup.

Wong grunted and straightened from the impact. I nailed him again with my forearm, and some of the rigidity flowed out of his body. Continuing to move in so I was facing him from his right side, I pushed his arm higher with the bicep grip and slipped my right hand to the back of his neck to arrest his backward movement. Then I yanked his head down and slammed my knee into his face. His head bounced and I kneed him in the face again. And again.

I felt his body go slack. I kicked his feet out from under him and swept him to his back. He hit the pavement hard. I raised my foot and stomped his exposed throat. His body jerked but he was already out and probably never even felt the blow that killed him.

The whole encounter had lasted less than ten seconds. I glanced around, fully tactical again. I heard footsteps coming from beyond the same corner Wong had rounded moments earlier, and coiled to kill again. But there was no need. It was Dox. I was so ready to go off on him that my body twitched from the effort of holding back.

He pulled up short at the sight of me standing over Wong's prone form. “Holy shit,” he said.

I glanced around again. The street was deserted. A building opposite us was being renovated, and there was a Dumpster in front of it.

“Give me a hand,” I said. “Get him into that Dumpster.”

“The Dumpster? Why…”

“Goddamnit, just do it!”

Without another word, Dox grabbed one of Wong's wrists and hauled him up off his back. He stooped and swept the body up into a fireman's carry, then strode with it over to the Dumpster. I went with him.

In front of the Dumpster, I reached into Wong's right jacket pocket. I felt something cold and smooth inside and pulled it out. Sure enough, it was a Balisong, with what looked like titanium handles.

“That what he was carrying?” Dox asked.

“Yeah,” I said, dropping the knife into my pocket. “Let's get him in there.”

The top of the Dumpster was about six feet up and mostly in shadow, thank God. The two of us managed to get Wong's shoulders up to the lip, then shoved him until his torso tipped inside. We lowered him by his ankles until he was hanging upside down with only the backs of his knees against the top, and then let go. He slid down and hit whatever debris was at the bottom with a low thud.

I looked around again. Still all quiet.

“Let's go,” I said. “At this hour, I doubt anyone saw or heard anything. But I want to be sure. I'll come back in a little while.”

We started walking. “Come back for what?” he asked.

“I can't leave the body here. It's too close to Midori's apartment, they'll know what happened.”

“Well, how are you going to move it?”

“I need to borrow your car.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

“He's not bleeding much,” I said. “I didn't stab him. I'll put something down under him, it'll be okay.”

“Yeah, but where are you going to…”

“I'll punch holes in him and sink him in the Hudson. But I need a way to get him there.”

We turned onto Sixth Avenue and were suddenly amid lights and people. The street felt normal. It was calming.

“What were you doing there, anyway?” I asked as we walked.

“The way you got off the phone, partner, I had a bad feeling. You just didn't seem like you were being your old careful self.”

“I didn't expect him there,” I said lamely. “I thought he'd go back to the noodle shop, like he did last night.”

“He did. I watched him talk to his boss again. Looked like they had another fight. I guess the boss man told him to get his ass back out there in the cold and do what they were paying him to do, because out he went.”

“They were talking to each other the whole time, not looking at a video monitor, anything like that?”

“No, they were just talking to each other. Why, you think you got your picture taken?”

I shook my head. “I wondered if maybe there was a hidden camera in the lobby. But even if there was, even if they had access to the feed, it doesn't sound like that's what brought Wong. Anyway, when he came upon me, I could tell he wasn't prepared.”

“There's an understatement. You know, when I saw where he was heading, I tried to call you, but I couldn't get through.”

“I turned the phone off.”

“Well, if anybody ever compiles a list of the high-water marks of human cleverness, I'm afraid that'll be unlikely to merit consideration.”

I didn't respond. I deserved the sarcasm, and worse. What the hell had I been thinking? I knew better. I'd always known better.

Maybe I'd been trying to behave the way Midori would want me to behave. More like a civilian. Maybe I was trying to show her, show us both, that I could do it.

The attempt had lasted for all of thirty seconds. And look what happened within that brief span.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“That's okay. A situation like yours, it'd throw anyone off. Speaking of which, all I was going to say before was, Why go to all the trouble and risk of getting him in and out of the Dumpster? I would have just left him on the ground next to it, covered him with his jacket, and pissed on him so he'd look and smell like a passed-out drunk.”

I stopped and looked at him. Why the hell hadn't I thought of that?

“You're right,” I said. “I don't know what's wrong with me.”

“You've just got a lot on your mind, that's all.”

“And if we're using your car, who cares if he has urine all over him, anyway?”

Dox frowned. “You know, now that I'm thinking about it, maybe the Dumpster wasn't such a bad notion after all.”

We found a twenty-four-hour diner and went inside. We sat away from other people and ordered coffee. I was still too on edge to eat anything.

“Let me see what he was carrying,” Dox said.

I pulled out the knife and slid it to him under a napkin.

“Damn, son, that's a double-edge Cold Steel Arc-Angel. That boy knew his hardware. You going to keep it?”

We'd been over this kind of thing in Bangkok, not with entirely satisfactory results. Dox was a trophy taker and I wasn't.

“I was going to get rid of it,” I said.

He made a face of exaggerated sadness. “That strikes me as a shame.”

I rolled my eyes and extended a hand palm up in a “help yourself” gesture. Dox gave me one of his irrepressible grins, rubbed the knife down with the napkin, and put it in his pocket.

“Don't forget to scrub it,” I told him. “Alcohol, then bleach.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Although I think your Mr. Careful image might need a little polishing after tonight's outing.”

I let it go. I looked at my watch. It was just past three. The sun would be up in about three hours.

I realized that getting rid of Wong's body wouldn't buy me much time. Presumably his boss, Chan, knew where he was going tonight. Dox had seen them talking right before Wong headed to Midori's apartment. So Chan would assume that whatever happened to Wong had happened while he was watching the apartment. The place and timing in turn would implicate me. Chan would report this to Yamaoto. I didn't think Yamaoto would attack Midori and the baby directly, but he would probably do something to increase the pressure on them, as a way of drawing me out. And if Midori had any hint that my sudden presence had brought Yamaoto and company back into her life, whatever hopes I harbored of being with her and with Koichiro would instantly be snuffed out.

There had to be a way out of this. There had to be.

I thought about what I knew. Chan was the gang's captain. Wong reported to Chan. It was a conservative assumption that Chan reported, directly or indirectly, to Yamaoto. That meant Chan was the link between Wong's disappearance and Yamaoto's more active involvement.

Meaning, if something were to happen to Chan, too, no one would know where or when Wong had gone missing. Hell, if I handled things right, no one would even know what had happened to Wong. In fact, they might just think…

“You know what?” I said, a plan starting to take shape. “I'm going to need that Balisong after all.”

“Why?”

I wanted to tell him, but I knew if I did he'd want to help. And I'd put him at enough risk already.

“I'll fill you in later,” I said. “But we don't have much time now. How soon can you get your car?”

He shrugged. “I valet parked it at the hotel, and they put it in some local garage somewhere. So probably a half hour, forty-five minutes.”

“Good. Go get it, and stay mobile around East Houston. I'll call you shortly.”

He looked at me. “What are you planning on doing, man?”

“Don't worry about it. I'll tell you after.”